The children were bright, dirty, and pretty; the women so closely enveloped in their rebozos that only one eye could be seen. They greeted our people with warmth, and offered to go with us to the mountains. With the volubility of parrots they began to describe a most blood-thirsty fight recently had with the Chiricahuas, in which, of course, the Apaches had been completely and ignominiously routed, each Mexican having performed prodigies of valor on a par with those of Ajax. But at the same time they wouldn’t go alone into their fields,—only a quarter of a mile off,—which were constantly patrolled by a detachment of twenty-five or thirty men of what was grandiloquently styled the National Guard. “Peaches,” the guide, smiled quietly, but said nothing, when told of this latest annihilation of the Chiricahuas. General Crook, without a moment’s hesitancy, determined to keep on the trail farther into the Sierra Madre.
The food of these wretched Mexicans was mainly atole,—a weak flour-gruel resembling the paste used by our paper-hangers. Books they had none, and newspapers had not yet been heard of. Their only recreation was in religious festivals, occurring with commendable frequency. The churches themselves were in the last stages of dilapidation; the adobe exteriors showed dangerous indications of approaching dissolution, while the tawdry ornaments of the inside were foul and black with age, smoke, dust, and rain.
I asked a small, open-mouthed boy to hold my horse for a moment until I had examined one of these edifices, which bore the elaborate title of the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre and our Lady of the Trance. This action evoked a eulogy from one of the bystanders: “This man can’t be an American, he must be a Christian,” he sagely remarked; “he speaks Castilian, and goes to church the first thing.”
It goes without saying that they have no mails in that country. What they call the post-office of Basaraca is in the store of the town. The store had no goods for sale, and the post-office had no stamps. The postmaster didn’t know when the mail would go; it used to go every eight days, but now—quien sabe? Yes, he would send our letters the first opportunity. The price? Oh! the price?—did the caballeros want to know how much? Well, for Mexican people, he charged five cents, but the Americans would have to pay dos reales (twenty-five cents) for each letter.
The only supplies for sale in Basaraca were fiery mescal, chile, and a few eggs, eagerly snapped up by the advance-guard. In making these purchases we had to enter different houses, which vied with each other in penury and destitution. There were no chairs, no tables, none of the comforts which the humblest laborers in our favored land demand as right and essential. The inmates in every instance received us urbanely and kindly. The women, who were uncovered inside their domiciles, were greatly superior in good looks and good breeding to their husbands and brothers; but the latter never neglected to employ all the punctilious expressions of Spanish politeness.
That evening the round-stomached old man, whom, in ignorance of the correct title, we all agreed to call the Alcalde, paid a complimentary visit to General Crook, and with polite flourishes bade him welcome to the soil of Mexico informed him that he had received orders to render the expedition every assistance in his power, and offered to accompany it at the head of every man and boy in the vicinity. General Crook felt compelled to decline the assistance of these valiant auxiliaries, but asked permission to buy four beeves to feed to the Apache scouts, who did not relish bacon or other salt meat.
Bivouac was made that night on the banks of the Bávispe, under the bluff upon which perched the town of Basaraca. Numbers of visitors—men and boys—flocked in to see us, bringing bread and tobacco for barter and sale. In their turn a large body of our people went up to the town and indulged in the unexpected luxury of a ball. This was so entirely original in all its features that a mention of it is admissible.
Bells were ringing a loud peal, announcing that the morrow would be Sunday, when a prolonged thumping of drums signaled that the Baile was about to begin.
Wending our way to the corner whence the noise proceeded, we found that a half-dozen of the packers had bought out the whole stock of the tienda, which dealt only in mescal, paying therefor the princely sum of $12.50.